Some days later, as evening was already closing in, the family was, as
usual at this time of the day, sitting all together in their
garden-room. The doors stood wide open, and the sun had already sunk
behind the woods on the far side of the lake.
Reinhard was invited to read some folk-songs which had been sent to
him that afternoon by a friend who lived away in the country. He went
up to his room and soon returned with a roll of papers which seemed to
consist of detached neatly written pages.
So they all sat down to the table, Elisabeth beside Reinhard. "We
shall read them at random," said the latter, "I have not yet looked
through them myself."
Elisabeth unrolled the manuscript. "Here's some music," she said, "you
must sing it, Reinhard."
To begin with he read some Tyrolese ditties[5] and as he read on he
would now and then hum one or other of the lively melodies. A general
feeling of cheeriness pervaded the little party.
[5] Dialectal for _Schnitterhüpfen_, _i.e._ 'reapers' dances,' sung
especially in the Tyrol and in Bavaria.
"And who, pray, made all these pretty songs?" asked Elisabeth.
"Oh," said Eric, "you can tell that by listening to the rubbishy
things--tailors' apprentices and barbers and such-like merry folk."
Reinhard said: "They are not made; they grow, they drop from the clouds,
they float over the land like gossamer, hither and thither, and are sung
in a thousand places at the same time.[6] We discover in these songs our
very inmost activities and sufferings: it is as if we all had helped to
write them."
[6] These fine cobwebs, produced by field-spiders, have always in the
popular mind been connected with the gods. After the advent of
Christianity they were connected with the Virgin Mary. The shroud in
which she was wrapped after her death was believed to have been woven of
the very finest thread, which during her ascent to Heaven frayed away
from her body.